- Back just in time to study for my final exam in ethical theory tomorrow (Total time spent studying: 18 minutes. Total time spent reading ESPN reports on the Heisman ceremony: 18 minutes. This is not a coincidence, and actually represents my priorities at the moment).

- I spent the entire train ride up to New York arguing with a Dartmouth French Lit professor. I know she was a Dartmouth French Lit professor, and that she graduated from Yale ('91) and got her PhD from the same ('95) becuase she mentioned each an average of 8 times during the course of casual conversation. The argument basically came when I decided to alleviate my nerves by picking a fight, in an incidental fashion. On a whim, I decided to assert that Voltaire was the greatest writer ever to emerge from Europe. I then made a bunch of vague arguments about description and the like. I can't imagine it didn't just flat-out piss off everyone in the adjacent seats.

- I spent the ride on the way back, from Philadelphia to Baltimore, involuntarily carrying on a conversation with the guy in the seat next to me. He turned to me after about five minutes and showed me the book he was reading. The topic? Kaballah. I immediately made about five snap-judgements, none of them flattering. It turns out he travels back and forth between Philadelphia and Baltimore becuase he took a new job with the FDA and didn't want to to move his kids. He left a better paying job at a pharmacutical company becuase he didn't like what they were doing. I felt immediately bad for assuming so much about him from his questionable choice of literature.

- Listening to Belle and Sebastian and reading Martin Amis makes me feel like I should be a) more angsty, b) more gay, c) more British, in descending order of importance. I realize that (c) is just (b) with an accent, but I felt it important to include both, since I have trouble with accents which are not faux-German or Russian.

- I feel weird saying this but... Me: 1, My immune system: 0.

- I realized today that, for the past 5-6 years, I've always asked for books for Christmas, but nobody has ever gotten me one which I liked unless I told them, at the very least, the authors I like. It's really odd to me that this should be the case. I think I would fellate to death the person who managed to find me something I enjoyed as a present.

- Given the choice between Don Quixote and a turkey sandwich on rye, I'd take Don Quixote. Figure THAT out, bitch.